The folks at Funny or Die have decided to take on the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman/Stand Your Ground issue with a video introducing the Black NRA.
In it, Sarah Silverman says, "Our fund will put guns into the hands of those that need them most: young black males" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
NewsBusters reported Saturday that the trustee of the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, is trying to get an asteroid named after Trayvon Martin.
At roughly the same time Saturday, the Alabama State University marching band paid tribute to Martin during halftime festivities of a football game in Jackson, Mississippi, which included actually spelling "Trayvon":
The race-baiting media are going to be put to a serious challenge in the coming days following a tragic hate crime committed in New York City's Union Square Wednesday.
As CBS's New York affiliate reported late Friday evening, a retired train conductor was left brain dead when an African-American man unknown to him attacked him after shouting "I hate white people" (video follows with commentary):
How would you like to look into the evening sky and see an asteroid named Trayvon Martin?
If the trustee of the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, has his way, such will be the case.
Were you outraged over the senseless shooting of Chris Lane? If you were, what you were really experiencing was vengeance toward blacks for their daring to react to the death of Trayvon Martin. In fact, unless you are a conservative, you probably didn’t feel outrage over the death of Chris Lane at all.
This bit of psychologizing comes to you courtesy of Grio columnist Joy Reid, who sat in as guest host on MSNBC’s Martin Bashir’s show Friday night. The discussion had turned to the use of race as a “political football,” when Reid interrupted with this insight (video below, begins at around 3:52):
While HBO’s “Newsroom” is surely today’s leading liberal fantasy news show, it is following in a format pioneered by the overwrought crime drama series “Law and Order” and its various clone shows.
The producers of “Law and Order: SVU” reminded everyone of that recently by actually writing and filming an episode in which a character based on Paula Deen kills a Trayvon Martin character.
I must admit: I learned something from reading Alex Seitz-Wald’s post at Salon titled “No, Chris Lane is not Trayvon Martin!” I didn’t know until I read it there that Rush Limbaugh had called the crime the “Trayvon Martin [case] in reverse.”
I agree with Seitz-Wald that the two crimes are very dissimilar, though his and my reasons for so stating could not be further apart.
Corrected from earlier | People who were wondering whether Jesse Jackson would ever respond to the killing of an Australian collegiate baseball player by three "bored" teens in Oklahoma, one of whom allegedly posted racist tweets, got their answer today. Jackson's early Wednesday morning tweet read as follows: "Praying for the family of Chris Lane. This senseless violence is frowned upon and the justice system must prevail."
A BBC report has police saying that "The boy who has talked to us said, 'we were bored and didn't have anything to do, so we decided to kill somebody.'" The related Associated Press report doesn't carry the direct quote, instead impersonally relaying that "Police say the two killed 22-year-old Christopher Lane on Friday to overcome boredom." The AP has not reported Jesse Jackson's passive-voice reaction at its national site, effectively covering for a statement which comes off as "Well, I'd better say something, so let's get it over with." Let's compare Jackson's reaction to what he wrote on July 15 in a Chicago Sun-Times column about the George Zimmerman-Trayvon Martin situation:
NewsBusters readers might recall Stacey Dash, the black actress who was racially attacked on Twitter last year for having the nerve to come out in support of Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.
Dash took to Twitter again Friday this time responding to Oprah Winfrey's comparison of Trayvon Martin and Emmett Till writing, "Shame on you Oprah":
Ten days after claiming the premeditated lynching of Emmett Till almost 60 years ago was the same thing as George Zimmerman shooting Trayvon Martin in what jurors determined was self-defense, Oprah Winfrey Thursday continued to inject racism into this issue.
Appearing on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360, Winfrey said, "It's ridiculous to look at that case and not to think that race was involved" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
Talk about a hypocritical, mealy-mouthed non-apology apology . . . On today's Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough condemned Republicans who "support[ed] George Zimmerman before they even knew the facts of the case." Scarborough then added: "you know, I got out early, said some things about George Zimmerman myself, I shouldn't have said, perhaps. I got overly emotional. But I'm not in office. And if I were in office I would have apologized."
Scarborough didn't reveal to viewers the "some things" he had said about Zimmerman. In fact, early on in the case, long before the facts were on the table, Scarborough branded Zimmerman a "murderer." But Scarborough doesn't feel the need to apologize because he's not a politician. Is that Scarborough's standard? The host of a major national show can go on the air and cavalierly and unjustly accuse someone of murder. But because he's not in public office, he has no need to apologize? View the video after the jump.